Procurement Bill [HL]

Baroness Parminter Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 25th May 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Parminter (LD)]

My Lords, I will speak briefly. I associate myself entirely with the remarks of my noble friend Lady Young. I welcome the fact that the Government have set very clear net-zero targets. I hope that they will do similarly for nature targets in the near future, as the Environment Act requires. As my noble friend said, it would be an own goal if the Government were not to take the opportunities in this Bill to create market incentives to ensure that businesses move their supply chains to a more sustainable model. The Government can spend all they want on putting money into green energy and stopping harmful subsidies going into agriculture, but they will be missing a major opportunity if they do not address the opportunities in procurement.

Colleagues around the House have talked about the huge sums of money and the opportunities to do this. The noble Lord, Lord Stevens, talked about the money spent in the NHS and the opportunities, highlighted in the Health and Care Act, to decarbonise procurement. My noble friend Lady Smith of Newnham talked about the massive sums of money in defence. In recent weeks, our own Environment and Climate Change Committee has been looking at the opportunities in the area of food procurement to deliver many benefits by reducing greenhouse gas emissions, at the same time as tackling the growing obesity crisis among our children.

So there are massive opportunities, and when I looked at this Bill I was concerned. The words “net zero”, “nature”, “biodiversity”, “weight loss” and “waste reduction” are not in the Bill, the Explanatory Notes or the impact assessment—and indeed, in his opening remarks, the noble Lord, Lord True, did not mention net zero or the environment at all.

I will be brief. I add my weight to the calls already made by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, the noble Lord, Lord Stevens, and others for there to be a mechanism to put our concern for net zero and environmental goals in the Bill. The obvious way is to put it into Clause 11 under the procurement objectives; that would be the clearest way. Otherwise, there is a danger, as the noble Lord, Lord Maude, memorably said, that it will always be just about the money.

Equally, it could be that the Government choose to define in the Bill what they mean by public benefit. The Green Paper is very clear what public benefit means. As the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, who is not in his place, said, the Green Paper explicitly includes the environmental and net-zero goals. If that were in the Bill, that would be another way to do it. Or, as the noble Lord, Lord Stevens, suggested, another way would be to transpose some of the mechanisms put into the Health and Care Act by the Government. So there are plenty of suggestions from around this House, but there is a growing consensus that the Government have to do it.

Secondly, we need to make sure that the national procurement policy statement is as robust as it can be. Clearly, it will help if we get the objectives for the procurements correct. From looking at what was printed in the Cabinet Office procurement notes produced last year, there has been concern that, yes, it talks about meeting net-zero goals, addressing circular waste, reducing the amount of waste and tackling nature, but the carbon reduction plans apply only to central government, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, rightly said. Why? Why are we asking only people who are taking services from central government to produce carbon reduction plans to 2050? Why not all public authorities? We need to make sure that future public procurement statements are as strong as they need to be.

For me, that issue is strongly allied to scrutiny by this House of what that national procurement policy statement would be. The noble Baroness, Lady Young, raised a point about procedure in the House: it looks to be almost equivalent to a negative instrument. It may be that the Delegated Powers Committee has said that, because this policy statement does not have the ability to insist that someone does something and can only guide, it has to be a negative instrument. I find that quite amazing, given how powerful this statement could be, and I am sure that we as a House would want to be clear on the reasons for the proposed scrutiny.

Even if it is to be a negative instrument, we in this House have the power to change the period of time we have to scrutinise it. It says here that it is 40 days, but I worked out that, if you take out Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, it is effectively about three weeks. The reason I feel really quite strongly on this—I think we all feel strongly about parliamentary scrutiny—is that this will be the first document that will control so much of public procurement post Brexit and post the rules we had before.

We have just had a parallel policy statement, the environmental principles policy statement, which was meant to drive environmental protection across the heart of all government, and we in this House were given 21 days to scrutinise it. That is what we allowed for in the Environment Act. I sat through the passage of the Environment Act and I missed it. It is an own goal, and I am refusing to allow us to make the same mistake. I say this as a committee chair—the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, is also in the Chamber—because, given the difficulty of getting some Ministers to come before us so that we can scrutinise issues, and the need to then bring it back to the House and table a regret Motion or a take-note Motion, 21 days is not enough. This is a really important policy statement, so if the Government do come back and say, “Yes, it’s got to be a negative instrument”, we would of course accept it if that was legally what we had to accept—but I serve notice now that we will not accept 40-day scrutiny by this House of the national procurement policy statement.

Procurement Bill [HL]

Baroness Parminter Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 6th July 2022 Grand Committee

[Lord Wigley (PC)]

My Lords, I am delighted to follow the noble Baroness. This group of amendments brings together three different but equally important threads that are material to this Bill, each of which deserves a place in these debates on the Bill in its own right.

First, there are the environmental points, which were mentioned a moment ago by the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, and noble Lords subsequently added to them. They are fundamental. If it is government policy to aim at challenging targets to save our environment, that must be written into every aspect of public policy. It must be written into this aspect of public policy and others. We should not leave any opportunity going begging. This is an opportunity to have that in a Bill and to make sure that it is clearly understood by all those involved in the various diverse aspects of the procurement system.

Equally important is the question of how we regenerate the economy. Central to that must be the role of SMEs. They are a vital cog in the economy. They are the acorns from which the future will grow. They can also be very compatible with the environmental arguments to which we have referred. The points made by the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, the noble Baroness, Lady Verma, and my noble friend Lord Aberdare are important. I know that we will return to them on subsequent amendments, but we must not lose sight of them because these elements are vital to regenerating the economy in a sustainable way.

The third aspect, which I want to concentrate on for a moment, is disability. That agenda has been close to my heart for the past 40 or 50 years. The speech made by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, brought it home to us. As long ago as 1981, I had brought to my attention the social definition of disability: that a handicap is a relationship between a disabled person and his or her environment, be that the social environment, the physical environment or the psychological environment, and that we may or may not be able to do anything about the basic disability but we can almost always do something about the environment, be that the physical environment, the social environment or the psychological environment. Therefore, the extent to which a disability leads to a handicap rests with us in society in controlling those three elements. Clearly, that responsibility must run into all aspects of economic life and is therefore relevant to the Procurement Bill before us.

I very much hope that the amendments we have heard about—in particular, Amendment 141 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, but others as well—are passed to ensure that this matter is written into the Bill and that we have no misunderstanding. These three elements—the environmental element, the small business and economic regeneration element and the disability element—are central to the procurement system.

[Baroness Parminter (LD)]

My Lords, it is a great privilege to follow the noble Lord, Lord Wigley. I echo all the comments he made. I want to make a brief remark in support of Amendments 85 and 87 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, which I and my colleagues have co-signed, and in support of the point made so powerfully by the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, about ensuring that there a commitment in the Bill to deliver the net-zero and environmental goals through a commitment to ensuring that “public goods” includes sustainability goals. That is fundamental.

I will add only one point that has not been covered by colleagues. It is that this is not happening at the moment. The National Audit Office and the Environmental Audit Committee in the House of Commons have looked into public procurement by government departments and found there to be a woeful lack of connection with consideration of net zero and our environmental goals, and that is when government departments already have a statement from the Cabinet Office that is meant to guide them towards it. It is not happening, but that is completely separate from the far wider issue of where it is absolutely not happening, which is in public services procurement, where there is no guidance. If we do not have a national public policy statement on that, it will not happen, so it is absolutely fundamental that we get this in the Bill.

Procurement Bill [HL]

Baroness Parminter Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 11th July 2022 Grand Committee

At the end of the day, it is a question of balance. On one hand, leaving abstract phrases undefined gives you the most flexibility for the long term in order to live as things change, but on the other hand I firmly believe that professional procurement officials today need guidance on what is expected of them when they come to apply this legislation. My noble friend’s amendment asks for a bit more guidance in the Bill, and I hope the Minister will see the sense in giving just a bit more help.

[Baroness Parminter (LD)]

My Lords, I have added my name to the two amendments tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, which she so ably introduced. I am also speaking to Amendment 59A by my noble friend Lord Purvis of Tweed, who, because of the scheduling announced today, cannot be here.

I support all the amendments in this group, which takes us on to the issue of whether the Bill should bring forward public benefit. If we are to be put into camps then I am certainly in the camp that wants public procurement to be developing social values. Clearly the Minister will argue with us on that, but what I do not think he can argue with is that on some of the issues that we have been talking about in relation to public benefit—I cite specifically net zero and biodiversity loss, which the amendments refer to—are not just issues of social value; they are the Government’s stated objectives. They have legislative targets to meet for both net zero and biodiversity. So the Minister can argue with us if he does not want to use public procurement to deliver social value, which I firmly believe it should, but he cannot argue with the fact that, if his Government have targets, they need to deliver, and they should use every means at their disposal to do so.

I shall give an example of why I say that. The Environment and Climate Change Committee has been holding evidence sessions over the last three months on mobilising behaviour change. We have received evidence from academics, companies, schoolchildren and indeed everyone about how to change behaviour. The Climate Change Committee has said that about 60% of his Government’s targets are going to need people to change their behaviour. We have learned that you can make people change by giving them a bit more money through fiscal incentives or disincentives, and you can change regulations so that companies can or cannot produce certain products, but a critical factor is that we are social animals that want to see what the social norms are. We do not just live our lives in our own little house; we live our lives in schools and hospitals, and if we see menus in those places that may not reflect net-zero values, or we go into council buildings and see that they are not dealing with energy efficiency, that encourages us to think: “Why should I bother changing my lifestyle?”

Unless the Government use every opportunity at their disposal, one of which is procurement, they are not going to meet their own targets. So I argue that even if the Minister differs—as I think he would—from those of us who believe that procurement should deliver social values, it is still the case that the Government cannot meet their own targets unless they use the Bill to maximum effect, and that means putting in it the commitments referred to in this group of amendments. As the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, said, no one is precious about the wording; it is about the intent.

I was asked by the noble Baroness, Lady Verma, who had to leave early, to express her support for these amendments and to remind the Minister that he mentioned that there would be an opportunity for discussions with colleagues on these matters before Report.

As I said, I will introduce on his behalf—although nowhere near as ably as he would—my noble friend Lord Purvis’s probing amendment to pick up the issue of the use of Fairtrade products in procurement contracts. Here, to be fair, there has been progress in recent years: many central government departments use Fairtrade products, we see many local authorities using Fairtrade products, especially in catering, and indeed even here on the parliamentary estate we use Fairtrade products. So I am not saying there has not been progress in the absence of Bills such as this, but there is much more that can be done. My noble friend’s probing amendment aims to highlight the importance of fair trade in this arena and make sure that the Bill does all that it can to further that important agenda.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I rise in a very pleasing position for a Green: in a group of amendments addressing climate, biodiversity, social justice and indeed fair trade, to say that almost everything has been said, just not by me.

I am acutely aware of the hour so I am going to be very brief; I seek to add only a couple of points. Amendment 49 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, and addressed by the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, has full cross-party support; I would have attached my name to it had there been space. It is clearly a crucial amendment.

We have to contrast this Bill with the UK Infrastructure Bank Bill, which I was recently in, half of which is entirely directed at something that is missing in this Bill. I was thinking of the tireless work of the other noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, the one who is not in the Room today, who has worked so hard. I can go back to my first ever time in Committee in this Room almost three years ago now, when we were fighting to get a climate provision into the Pensions Bill. We thought, “One day we’ll get to the stage where we won’t have to fight to get these into every Bill when they should clearly be there.” Sadly, it is clear that, despite the UK Infrastructure Bank Bill, we are not there yet.

The points made by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, about the most recent report from the Climate Change Committee were hugely powerful. We have targets but not policies. How are we going to get those policies unless we have them written explicitly into Bills such as this? I commend the noble Lord’s Amendment 48, which I would have signed had I not missed it, which contains important wording about “cultural well-being”, something that is far too often missed out. The noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, made a point about culture in the broadest sense. We need to give people a rich life, one that may have less physical stuff in it but is of far better quality. The cultural point really starts to address that, as well as addressing public health and consumption issues.

I am aware of the time so I am going to be really restrained, and I hope I get some brownie points for that. I shall sit down.

Procurement Bill [HL]

Baroness Parminter Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 13th July 2022 Grand Committee

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, I will just wind up the debate we had on Monday. In this group, I have Amendment 52, which is about adding the improvement of

“economic, social and environmental well-being”

to the procurement objectives. I also put my name to a similar amendment, Amendment 48 in the name of my noble friend Lord Hunt of Kings Heath. I completely support everything that he said in his introduction; it covered what I would have said in support of my amendment, so there is no point in going over all that again. In fact, we discussed a number of amendments in this group that looked at the economic, social, environmental and cultural benefit and value of the Bill and considered what we mean by “public benefit”. It was a useful debate to explore those potential objectives and what the definition of “public benefit” is. It will be interesting to hear the Minister’s response to those discussions.

I also supported the amendments laid by my noble friend Lady Thornton, Amendments 47A and 52A. As my noble friend said, we believe that maximising social value is something that contracting authorities should have regard to. This is in line with the social value Act and the national procurement policy strategy, so this should all be put in line together. We also know that the Government are committed to expanding the use of social value within procurement to maximise these areas. The noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, who is not in her place today—

[Baroness Parminter (LD)]

I am in my place.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

Oh, the noble Baroness is there; I was looking for her in the place in which she sat on Monday. She moved, just to confuse me. This is the trouble with picking things up later.

The noble Baroness rightly said that meeting net zero is a government-stated objective and we believe, as she does, that this should also be an objective within the Procurement Bill. It could make a genuine difference, should that be something that needs to be taken account of. We also support those noble Lords who said in the debate that this helps to meet the levelling-up agenda as well as achieving net zero.

We know that social value is included in the NPPS—the national procurement policy statement—so I ask the Minister: if it is in the policy statement, why is it not referenced in the Bill? It concerns me that the policy statement can be changed at any point, so not having it in the Bill and just having it in the statement means that it is not absolutely embedded within the legislation. I will briefly mention that, between 2012 and 2020, there was no statutory guidance on social value. This inhibits its development, so we need to ensure that this does not happen in future.

I express strong support for Amendments 49 and 58 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, which are about climate and environmental matters and the importance of having these based within the Bill. She also said that “public benefit” needs further clarity, so I must ask again: does “public benefit” include environmental outcomes? It would be helpful to have further information on this. The noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, spoke importantly about the fact that using procurement in this way is an opportunity to drive behaviour change, because we are not going to achieve the Government’s net-zero objectives without behaviour change.

Amendment 45 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, specifies a number of overarching requirements that a contracting authority must take due regard of when carrying out procurement. We support the main points that he made—particularly, as well as the carbon account, the ethical and human rights record of the supplier, as he said. I know that we will talk about this in a later debate, but that is important.

Amendment 53 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, which the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, introduced, again talked about defining “public benefit”. I think that the Minister can see that this is not party political: right across the Committee there is concern about what “public benefit” means and what it is going to deliver as part of the Procurement Bill. The noble Lords, Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Purvis, also tabled amendments on this issue.

I finish by briefly mentioning an interesting briefing that I had from UKCloud. I do not know if other noble Lords have received it, but it is about the importance of maximising social value through procurement in the world that UKCloud works in—the cloud providers—and how doing so would be consistent with wider net-zero policy aspirations. UKCloud feels that it is important to support businesses in this country that are providing those kinds of platforms and support and that the sector can lead in the provision of clean, green technologies, which can help to digitise and decarbonise users of its services. It also believes that, if the sector got that kind of support from government, UK businesses would have the opportunity to really innovate and become leaders in this field. I found that an interesting briefing. If the Minister has not seen it, I would be happy to share it with him, because it had some interesting thoughts in it. The briefing also said that UKCloud feels that weighting should be given to make sure that cloud providers for the UK Government are paying their taxes in full on all earned income in the UK—that is an important point—and that they should have a clear and measurable track record of investing in local jobs and skills. The briefing has some interesting points about how procurement could help its particular type of business. I finish there and I look forward to the Minister’s response.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Noakes (Con)]

My Lords, with the leave of the Committee, I will move Amendment 60 in the name of my noble friend Lord Lansley and speak to Amendments 61, 63 and 64 in his name. As on our previous Committee day, at his request I am handling his amendments this week.

Amendment 60 is one of those favourite Committee amendments that changes “may” to “must”. No Committee can ever get through without at least one of them; there will be some others, I think. The amendment would change “may” to “must” in Clause 12(1) so that it would require the Government to produce a national procurement policy statement. Although it is clearly the Government’s intention to publish a statement, the current wording of Clause 12 leaves it open to them not to do so. That is a serious omission, especially given the introduction of covered procurement, which we will debate on Report. The NPPS will be the only way to ensure that all public procurement is conducted in accordance with the principles and objectives set out in it.

Amendments 63 and 64 would require that the consultation is based on a draft statement. The present drafting would allow a consultation without the benefit of seeing what the Government intended the statement to say. I do not think this is an acceptable or effective consultation process. It makes something of a mockery of consultation, particularly for the first NPPS. I note that Amendment 74 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, also includes proper consultation on a draft.

The other amendment in my noble friend’s name is Amendment 61. The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, has added her name to it, and I understand that she will also speak to it. That is probably just as well, because I am not much in favour of lists such as the one here, even when they are non-inclusive. The various other amendments in this group show that noble Lords are attracted to attaching other pet causes to the list. I should say, though, that my noble friend Lord Lansley believes that we must ensure that the existing statutory obligations on the environment and social value are included in the priorities in order to reaffirm Parliament’s will, and he has added innovation and competitiveness in UK industry because they are stated Treasury priorities, as set out in the Spring Statement. Lastly, he included

“the minimisation of fraud, corruption, waste or the abuse of public money”,

which should be underlying values in relation to public procurement. He believes that these items should be specifically referenced in the Bill.

I beg to move.

[Baroness Parminter (LD)]

My Lords, I have two amendments in this group. In the absence of the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, I rise to introduce Amendments 65 and 546.

This is an important group of amendments. Although contracting authorities may never bother to read a Bill that we have debated for hours, all of them must have regard to the NPPS, so what is in that document is really important. The amendments in this group look at two particular areas. One is what is put in the Bill about the strategic priorities. The second is the process for parliamentary scrutiny to bring that into being.

Amendments 65 and 546, in my name and the names of the noble Baronesses, Lady Worthington, Lady Verma and Lady Young of Old Scone, so they are cross-party amendments, are intended to tease out the strategic priorities that the Government allude to in the opening sentence of the NPPS, as stated in the Bill, because it does not put anything in the Bill.

Procurement Bill [HL]

Baroness Parminter Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 28th November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Worthington (CB)]

My Lords, I must make this point. Had we taken climate change and biodiversity loss seriously 30 years ago, we would not be in the situation we are in today. We are not seeing the investments we need into clean alternatives; nor have we developed the technologies from which other countries could benefit, and which would benefit our companies through their exportation around the world in order to solve this problem.

Climate change is not going anywhere: we will be debating it for the rest of this century. It seems absolutely incredible that we will not be considering it in 30 years’ time. It will be far more urgent then than it is now. We are already 30 years too late.

[Baroness Parminter (LD)]

My Lords, I add my support to the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington. There is disunity in Horsham tonight: I disagree strongly with the noble Lord, Lord Maude of Horsham. I went to school in Horsham and was on the council there. However, I take a different view from the noble Lord about the role of procurement.

He talks about procurement’s sole purpose being good value. He went on to say that it is “motherhood and apple pie” to have value-driven public procurement policy, but I argue that it is not. That is the point of procurement: to marry good value with being value-led. Why be in government if you are not using all the levers at your disposal—regulation, fiscal incentives and disincentives, and procurement, with its massive spend—to deliver the values your Government want to deliver?

[Lord Maude of Horsham (Con)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

I remind the House that noble Lords may speak only once on Report.

[Baroness Parminter (LD)]

I will be very brief, as I do not want to prolong the discussion. In Committee, the Government made it clear that they would seriously consider the use of the national procurement policy statement as a vehicle to deliver the value-driven approach and support environmental and climate goals. The noble Lord, Lord True, said that they would reflect on that. Well, there has been no reflection. That is why it is so important—vital—that both the Labour Front Bench and the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, have come forward with two amendments today that will raise the importance and central role of the environment and climate change in the national procurement policy statement. I hope they test the opinion of the House on that, given that there is clearly a disagreement.

I support the point from the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, about Parliament having a say on this and a draft procurement policy statement being put forward. If the Government will not accept that, they need to explain to the House tonight why, if it was good enough for the Environment Act and the environmental principles policy statement, it is not good enough on this occasion.

I strongly believe that we should support the amendments, which make sure that procurement delivers values as well as good value.

[Baroness Finn (Con)]

My Lords, much has been made of the importance of social and environmental goals in public procurement. Of course, as many noble Lords have said, these goals have their place—but they should not be the driving force behind a procurement system, forcing it to run slowly and inefficiently and increasing cost to the public purse while disincentivising innovation and the participation of small businesses.

The Bill is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to put in place a robust procurement system that encourages procurers to focus on outcomes that deliver productivity improvements and innovation, reduce the cost to the public purse, and drive efficiency. It should do away with unnecessary and excessive procedural requirements that make it much more difficult for smaller businesses to compete and grow.

We should not lose sight of the fact that there is already much flexibility in the Bill, which is good news for delivery on social and environmental principles. This flexibility is evident in the Bill from the very outset, with the objective to maximise the public benefit and to allow economic, social and environmental matters to be considered. When it comes to awarding contracts, Clause 22 allows for a broad range of award criteria to be included in procurements where they are relevant, including those relating to social and environmental aims.

The Bill also includes a facility for a specific expression of government policy in the form of the national procurement policy statement and the Wales procurement policy statement. These can be used to create obligations to consider social and environmental goals of the day, such as net zero, without compromising the importance of maintaining an efficient and workable procurement regime. That is why I agree with my noble friend the Minister that we must avoid at all costs the inclusion of broad and unfocused obligations in relation to social and environmental matters.

Amendments to the Bill that would place requirements on contracting authorities always to have to include social and environmental benefits when awarding their contracts would slow down the procurement regime and increase risk. They would also significantly disincentivise small and medium-sized enterprises, which do not have the back-office capability to maintain huge reams of social and environmental policies and practices.

In summary, I am heartened that the approach the Government are already taking in the Bill will allow contracting authorities the flexibility to deliver procurement outcomes that address these important social and environmental objectives on a case-by-case basis while retaining value for money at the forefront. With this Bill, we are leaving behind a slow and bureaucratic procurement system that is unnecessarily restrictive in nature. Let us not change one set of restrictive procurement practices for another.